Pain for all, gain for Khoka

Although most of the BNP top brass are behind bars, its Vice-Chairman Sadeque Hossain Khoka has managed to slip through the net, as has always been the case during the current term of the Awami League-led alliance.

The senior leaders, including its Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, were arrested in connection with March 2 and 6 violence following the rallies in front of the BNP headquarters.

Interestingly, Sadeque Hossain Khoka, also the convener of the Dhaka city unit BNP, chaired those demonstrations but was spared from being arrested.

But on March 11, the police raided the BNP office and arrested Sadeque Hossain Khoka along with some other key leaders.

Khoka, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Altaf Hossain Chowdhury were later freed from the DB office the following day much to the surprise of any political calculation.

When cases were filed and a charge sheet was formed, Khoka was simply dropped from the list of the accused.

Even during the army-backed caretaker government when almost all senior leaders of major political parties had to land in jail, including BNP Chief Khaleda Zia and Awami League Chief Sheikh Hasina, Khoka was out.

Though Anti-Corruption Commission filed a case against him on April 2, 2001, nothing really happened to him.

Khoka challenged the authority of Khaleda Zia at that time and came up with the idea of party reformation.

His followers later even occupied the party’s Naya Paltan headquarters and put the party office under lock and key.

But as the two top leaders – Hasina and Khaleda, were released from the jail, Khoka turned the table and returned to mainstream politics.

He was made the vice-chairman in the party’s fifth council.

Finally he was picked up as the convener of the BNP city unit beating veteran party leader Mirza Abbas.

Khoka went to jail last on May 16, 2012 and came out free on June 14. During that time, he spent most of his days staying at the BIRDEM Hospital.